Metabolic Eng. & Synthetic Biology

Metabolic engineering and Synthetic Biology

Date: 2026.8.25 updated

Instructor 

Instructor                                   Prof. Han Min Woo (우한민 교수님)

Department                                 Food Science and Biotechnology

Office location & hours                61-306, Wed. 6 pm - 8 pm or RSVP (Email: hmwoo@skku.edu)

Contact Information                    Tel: 031-290-7810, Email: Email: hmwoo@skku.edu

Course Objectives and Outlines

Objectives:

The objective of the course, as implied by the course content above, is to introduce the key principles of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. This course contains public online materials and discussion with the instructor.

Pre-requirement course

: Food Bioprocess Engineering (FBT2015) (FBT2029), Molecular Biology for Food Biotechnology (FBT3071) or equivalent.

Text and supplementary books

Metabolic Engineering: Principles and Methodologies, Academic Press, 978-0126662603

Synthetic Biology: Tools for Engineering Biological Systems, CSHL, 978-1621821182

Online Materials:

1.     edX (MOOC) https://www.edx.org/, Principles of Synthetic Biology

2.     Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/, Engineering Life: Synbio, Bioethics & Public Policy, Industrial Biotechnology

3. Harvard-MIT SynBio https://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/S61.20/index.html

4.     MIT Open Courseware, 

https://ocw.mit.edu/, https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biological-engineering/ 

 20.020; Introduction to Biological Engineering Design (Spring 2009); Undergraduate

 20.180; Biological Engineering Programming (Spring 2006); Undergraduate

 8.591J; Systems Biology (Fall 2014) (Lecture video); Graduate

 20.106J; Systems Microbiology (Fall 2006); Undergraduate

Evaluation

1. Attendance 10%, Attitude 5%, Project 25%, Final 60%

2. (F grade: Below 3/4 attendance of 15 weeks ==> F graded

3. Exam scores less than 6 pt out of 100 pt for each Mid-, Final regardless of all attendances ==> F graded

Class dates

01 week: 09/03       Basic understanding about metabolic engineering

02 week: 09/10       Basic understanding about Synthetic Biology

03 week: 09/17       Machine Learning

04 week: 09/24       Class Off

05 week: 10/01       Synthetic Biology

06 week: 10/08       CRISPR & Genetic Code and Circuit

07 week: 10/15       Control

08 week: 10/22       Environment

09 week: 10/29       Precision Fermentation

10 week: 11/05       Specialities

11 week: 11/12       Materials

12 week: 11/19       Adaptive Evolution

13 week: 11/26       Microbial Foods

14 week: 12/03       Scale-Up & TEA

15 week: 12/10       Final exam

16 week: 12/17       Extra